a philosophical solution is a conceptual readymade, a wine bottle filled with a dark mysterious liquid in a branded wooden crate. Like a riddle, this piece contains hidden messages–a tiny tongue, a closed box, a sealed bottle, an opaque elixir. Together these elements expose our complicated relationship to language and those libations that let our own tongues run. In the artist’s words, this edition is: “A beverage of dark mental liquid in the vein of such ideas as: ‘the text wrote itself’ or ‘language has a mind of its own’; a thirst- quencher that silences the sipper while versing the sipped.”

William Pope.L (b. 1955 in Newark, New Jersey) is a prominent multidisciplinary artist known for his conceptual, often performance-based art practice, which actively confronts issues of race, sex, power, consumerism, and social class. As the self-proclaimed “friendliest black artist in America,” Pope.L invites dialogue through provocative performances, installations, and art objects. His work has been exhibited and performed at The Whitney Museum in New York, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, and the Renaissance Society in Chicago.